QuestionQUESTION: Hello, I wanted to know if there is a website or source that can help me determine what a patient's beta hcg level is normally after a medical abortion, depending on the number of weeks she is pregnant?
thanks!
ANSWER: Hello, yaya,
There is a problem with your request. Web sites that talk about beta HCG focus on what the levels should be in a normal pregnancy, not a pregnancy that has been interrupted with powerful and poisonous chemicals. To begin with, the beta HCG test is a blood test. Looking at a web site won't result in a woman having had her blood drawn and the HCG level determined. Take this web site for example:
http://www.betabase.info/index.php
They have a lot of really good basic information, and some extensive discussions. Having a pill abortion isn't mentioned anywhere that I could find, though I lack the time to do a thorough exploration. A lot of the web sites don't WANT to discuss abortion because of liability problems.
There are also lots of other variables. What was the woman's HCG level at the time of the pill abortion, and how rapidly had it been increasing? Did she even have a viable pregnancy, or instead, if she had left her body alone, would she have miscarried naturally anyway? At what point in her pregnancy did she take the pills? How much did she take? How long has it been since she took the pills? Because of variables like these, there is no predicting how a given woman's body will react.
You might find this article helpful:
http://www.managingcontraception.com/qa/questions.php?questionid=407
Notice how this answer doesn't talk about specifics, but rather, in generalities.
If you are a woman who just had a pill abortion, you really need to see a good doctor to make sure your health isn't in serious danger. Don't go to anyone who helped supply the pills. They won't admit they did anything wrong or hurt you, because of legal liability.
If you are someone who is trying to help women get pill abortions, and you want to know when they are successful, then I urge you to stop this, because pill abortions are deadly. Sooner or later, you will get into trouble. No person who is not a licensed MD should be prescribing such pills, and nobody should sell the pills to anyone without a prescription. A pill abortion is dangerous enough that an ethical doctor will keep close tabs on a woman who has taken the pills. (In fact, an ethical doctor won't give her the pills in the first place.) Ordinarily, when they give the pills, people don't even take a medical history or do an examination. The woman takes the pills on her own at home, and if she develops a medical problem (which is likely), she is on her own. I have known of cases where a woman got very sick at home. One woman I know got so sick her six year old had to take care of her. A doctor will also test the woman for Clostridium sordellii. If a woman has C. sordellii in her body, and she uses pills vaginally (and occasionally even if she uses them bucally), she is at risk of developing toxic shock syndrome. Once symptoms start, it kills a woman within hours. I know of no case whatsoever where they managed to save a woman's life once symptoms have started. This normal inhabitant of many women's bodies becomes deadly because the pills shut down a woman's immune system. She won't even run a fever. She just fades out, with one life process after another shutting down. A doctor who gives a woman these pills will usually warn her NOT to insert any pills vaginally. It is illegal in the US to do that anyway. For the same reason, a pill abortion can alter a woman's body chemistry so that she becomes much more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases, and if she continues to have sex, she is now much more at risk. Most women who have inappropriate sex and seek an abortion have partners who have slept with others, even if they don't tell the woman about it. If a surgical intervention becomes necessary because the pills didn't work as expected, she can get an STD from the surgical abortion itself, because very few abortionists sterilize their instruments properly. This can include HIV.
In fact, the manufacturer of Misoprostol specifically says the pills should never be given to a pregnant woman (because they can kill her). Misoprostol is a medication used for stomach ulcers. Anybody who gives Misoprostol to a pregnant woman is doing so off label. If the woman gets hurt, the manufacturer is off the hook legally, but the person who supplied the pills is legally liable.
Approximately 10,000 women die each year from abortion in India. The vast majority of those will be from bleeding to death after a pill abortion. The pills are readily available over the counter in India, and the instructions are the most deadly possible. Most of the victims are rural women who don't have access to medical care. But if you are dispensing pills to women and then doing follow-up, you will be faced with a potentially lethal situation sooner or later. There are much better ways to help a woman other than helping threaten her life.
If you would like to give women some REAL help, there are organizations near you that can provide all sorts of services, and they won't do anything to harm a woman medically. A woman deserves to be given real help. Let me know if you need help locating such an organization.
Let me know if you have any further questions. You're welcome.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Hello Pat, thanks for the advice about HGC levels post abortion. I was asking this question because of a patient I was seeing in the clininc a coulpe weeks ago, her beta HCG level came back >120,000 7 weeks after her abortion, I presumed that it would be muck lower that that by now. She was reportedly 5 weeks pregnant.
AnswerHello, yaya,
Under the circumstances, I think everyone who is providing a health care service is going to run into situations that occur as a result of abortion, regardless of whether we personally were involved in providing an abortion in the first place.
The figures you are giving me are within the normal range for a normal pregnancy. Here is a good chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin#Reference_levels
This is counting from the beginning of the pregnancy she tried to abort. Now the burning question is, this being the case, is she aware of any other symptoms of pregnancy? By 12 weeks, she should be. Or is it possible she got pregnant again right after her abortion? Again, the levels would be within normal range for a normal pregnancy of 7 weeks. I would recommend you question her about any other symptoms she might be experiencing. If she is overweight, and isn't experiencing morning sickness, there is a possibility that she is pregnant, but not experiencing any other symptoms of note, and doesn't realize it. Even at 12 weeks, she won't feel movement yet. She might be more tired and more hungry than usual. I don't know to what extent she might have experienced breast tenderness. Those are about all the main things I can think of.
So if you see her again, I hope this helps you know what questions to ask. Let me know if you acquire any further information. And you're welcome.
